The Two Versions of Wærferth's Translation of Gregory's Dialogues: An Old English Thesaurus

At King Alfred’s command, Bishop Wærferth of Worcester translated Gregory’s Dialogues into English during the last quarter of the ninth century. About a century or a century and a half later, between 950 and 1050, someone, probably again at Worcester, went through the translation with painstaking care, making thousands of changes in vocabulary and phrasing. The anonymous reviser had constant recourse to a copy of Gregory’s Latin, and some of his changes do in fact render the Latin more closely. The vast majority of the changes, though, were introduced apparently only to bring the translation’s diction up to date or into conformity with that of the reviser’s own dialect, since they do not make the translation more accurate. But whatever the reason for the thousands of new words, when put alongside the old words of Wærferth’s original translation, they form a sizable and unique Old English thesaurus.